"Something wrong with the chaise?" said Angelot to the three who were left. "What will you do if it is not there? You will have to carry me to Paris, for I promise you I don"t mean to walk."
"Monsieur will not be very heavy," one of the men answered, good-humouredly; the same who had laughed before.
"Lift me then, and see!" said Angelot. "All right, my good fellow, I"ll ride on your shoulders. Voyons! you can carry me down the road."
They were standing in a patch of moonlight, just outside the shadow of the oaks. The two other men stepped back for an instant, while their comrade stooped, laughing, to lift Angelot. He was met by a lightning-like blow worthy of an English training, and tumbled over into the bracken. One of the two others fell flat in the opposite direction, and the prisoner vanished into the shadows of the grove. The third man dashed after him, but came into violent contact, in the darkness, with the trunk of a tree, and fell down stunned at the foot of it.
By this time the chaise had slowly climbed the hill from a village in the further valley, where the post-boy had been refreshing himself and his horses. Simon stopped to scold him, then left his companion to keep guard over him, and himself mounted again the precipitous bit of stony lane which had once been the approach to the farm, and now opened on the wild moor. He whistled shrilly as he came, and then called in a subdued voice: "All right, men! Bring him down."
There was no answer. He quickened his pace, and coming up under the oaks found the two fellows sitting on the ground rubbing their heads, staring vacantly round with eyes before which all the moonshiny world was swimming.
Simon swore at them furiously. "What has happened, you fools? Where"s Alexandre? Where is the prisoner? name of all that"s--"
"Devil knows, I don"t," said the fellow who had paid dear for his good-humour. "That little gentleman is cleverer than you or me, Master Simon, and stronger too. He knocked us down like ninepins. Where is he?
Nearly back at La Mariniere, I should think, and with Alexandre chasing after him!"
"Not so far off as that, I suspect," said Simon. "Up with you. He is hidden in this cover, and you have got to beat it till you find him. How did you come to let him escape, pair of idiots? You are not fit for your work."
He went back a few yards, while the men scrambled to their feet, and whistled sharply for the one he had left in charge of the post-boy. Then he lighted a lantern, and they pushed at various points into the wood.
The first discovery was that of Alexandre, lying senseless; they dragged him into the road and left him there to come to himself. Then they unearthed a wild boar, which rushed out furiously from the depths of the bracken and charged at the light, then bolted off across the moor.
Smaller animals fled from them in all directions; large birds rustled and cried, disturbed in the thick foliage of the oaks, impenetrable ma.s.ses of shade.
"If we were to shoot into the trees? He may be hidden in one of them."
The suggestion came from Angelot"s friend, whose frivolity had given him his chance, and whose anxiety to put himself on the right side by catching him again, dead or alive, very nearly brought his young life to a speedy end. For foolish Francois was wise this time, so wise, had he only known it, that Angelot was sitting in the very tree he touched with his hand as he spoke, a couple of yards above his head.
The boy had courage enough and to spare; but his heart seemed to stop at that moment, and he felt himself turning white in the darkness. The men could hardly shoot into the trees without hitting him, though he had slipped down as far as he could into the hollow trunk. He would be horribly wounded, if not killed. It was a hard fate, to be shot as a poacher might shoot a pheasant roosting on a bough. An unsportsmanlike sort of death, Uncle Joseph would say. He held his breath. Should he await it, or give himself back to the police by jumping down amongst them?
The moment of danger pa.s.sed. Angelot smiled as the men moved on, and hid himself a little more completely.
"No," Simon said. "No shooting till you are obliged. His uncle lives only a mile off, and he will come out if he hears a gun."
"So he would, the blessed little man!" muttered Angelot.
The men went on searching the wood, but with such stealthy movements, so little noise, even so little perseverance, as it seemed to him, that he was confirmed in his idea of Simon"s sole responsibility. These men were police, supposed to be all-powerful; but somehow they did not act or talk as if Savary and the Emperor, or even Real, were behind them.
Angelot watched the light as it glimmered here and there, and listened to the rustling in the bracken. Presently, when they were far off on the other side of the little grove, he climbed out of the trunk and slipped down from his tree. Simon might change his mind about shooting; in any case it seemed safer to change one"s position. Being close to the edge of the _landes_, Angelot"s first thought was to take to his heels and run; then again that seemed risky, and a shot in the back was undesirable. He dived in among the bracken, which was taller than himself, and grew thick on the ground like a small forest. Half crawling, half walking, stopping dead still to watch the wandering gleams of light and to hear the steps and voices of the men, then pushing gently on again, Angelot reached a hiding-place on the other side of the grove. Here the bracken, taller and thicker than ever, grew against and partly over the ruined walls of the old farm. In the very middle of it, where the wall made a sudden turn, there was a hollow, half sheltered by stones, and a black yawning hole below, the old well of the homestead. All the top of it was in ruins; a fox had made its hole halfway down; there was still water at the bottom of the well.
Here, plunged in the darkness, Angelot sat on the edge of the well and waited. There were odd little sounds about him, the squeaking of young animals, the sleepy chirp of easily disturbed birds; a frog dived with a splash into the well, and then in a few unearthly croaks told his story to his mates down there. The bracken smelt warm and dry; it was not a bad place to spend a summer night in, for any one who knew wild nature and loved it.
All was so still that Angelot, after listening intently for a time, leaned his head against the white stones, fell asleep, and dreamed of Helene. If he had carried her off that night, mad fellow as he was, some such shelter might have been all he had to offer her.
He woke with a start, and saw by the light that he must have been asleep at least two hours, for the moon was high in the sky. He got up cautiously, and crept through the bracken to the edge of the grove towards Les Chouettes.
It was fortunate that he took the precaution to move noiselessly, as if he were stalking game, for he had hardly reached the edge of the wood when he saw Simon standing in the moonlight. Evidently he had been sitting or lying on the bank and had just risen to his feet, for one of his comrades lay there still.
"He is hidden here. He must be here," said Simon, in a low, decided voice. "I will not go away without him. Hungry and thirsty--yes, I dare say you are. You deserve it, for letting him escape."
"I tell you, he is not here," said the other man. "We have been all round this bit of country; all through it. And look at the moonlight. A mouse couldn"t get away without our seeing it. What"s that? a rabbit?"
"I shall walk round again," said Simon. "Those other fellows may be asleep, if they are as drowsy and discontented as you. Look sharp now, while I am away."
Simon tramped down the lane. The other police officer stretched himself and stared after him.
"I"ll eat my cap," he muttered, "if the young gentleman"s in the wood still. He deserves to be caught, if he is."
At that moment Angelot was standing under an oak two yards away. In the broad, deep shadow he was invisible. A longing seized him to knock the man"s cap off his head and tell him to keep his word and eat it. But Simon was too near, and it was madness to risk the chase that must follow. Angelot laughed to himself as he slipped from that shadow to the next, the officer yawning desperately the while.
There was something unearthly about Les Chouettes in the moonlight. It seemed to float like a fairy dwelling, with its slim tower and high windows, on a snowy ocean of sand. The woods, dark guarding phalanxes of tall oaks and firs, seemed marshalled on the slopes for its defence.
Angelot came down upon it by the old steep lane, having slipped across from the ruined farm to a vineyard, along by a tall hedge into another wood of low scrub and bracken, then into the road a hundred yards above the house. Before he reached it he heard the horses kicking in the stable, then a low bark from the nearest dog which he answered by softly whistling a familiar tune.
In consequence of this all the dogs about the place came running to meet him, softly patting over the sand, and it was on this group, standing under her window in the midnight stillness, that Riette looked out a few minutes later.
Something woke her, she did not know what, but this little watcher"s sleep was always of the lightest, and she had not long fallen asleep, her eyelashes still wet with tears for Angelot. The window creaked as she opened it, leaning out into the moonlight.
"Is it you, my Ange? But they said--"
"I have escaped," said Angelot. "Quick, let me in! They may be following me."
"But go round to papa"s window, dearest! And what business have the dogs there? Ah--do you hear, you wicked things? Go back to your places."
The dogs looked up, dropped their ears and tails, slunk away each to his corner. Only the dog who guarded Riette"s end of the house remained; he stretched himself on the sand, slapped it with his tail, lolled out his tongue as if laughing.
"Don"t you think my uncle will shoot me before he looks at me, if I attack his window?" said Angelot. "And in any case, I dare hardly ask him to take me in. He has not forgiven me. But you could hide me, Riette! or at least you could give me something to eat before I take to the woods again."
"My boy!" the odd little figure in the flannel gown leaned farther out, and the dark cropped head was turned one way and the other, listening.
"Go round into the north wood and wait as near papa"s window as you can.
I will go down to him. I think he cannot be asleep; he must be thinking of you."
"Merci!" said Angelot, and walked away.
But he did not go into the wood. He stole round very gently to where, in spite of the moon, he saw a light shining in Monsieur Joseph"s uncurtained window. The guardian dog rubbed himself against his legs as he stood there.
Monsieur Joseph"s room was panelled and furnished with the plainest wood. His bed was in the alcove at the back; the only ornament was the portrait of his wife, a dark, Italian-looking woman, which hung surrounded by guns, pistols, and swords, over the low stone mantelpiece.
It was just midnight, but Monsieur Joseph was not in bed. He looked a quaint figure, in a dressing-gown and a ta.s.selled night-cap, and he sat at the table writing a long letter. He started when Riette touched the door, and Angelot saw that his hand moved mechanically towards a pair of pistols that lay beside him. Monsieur Joseph did not trust entirely to his dogs for defence.
In she came, with bare white feet stepping lightly over the polished floor. Angelot moved back a pace or two that he might not hear what they said to each other. When Monsieur Joseph hastily opened the window, Riette had been sent back summarily to her room, and Angelot was waiting halfway to the wood.
"Come in, Ange! why do you stand there?" the little uncle exclaimed under his breath. "Sapristi, how do you know that you are not watched?"
"I think not, Uncle Joseph. And I fancy the fellows who caught me will hardly follow me here," said Angelot, stepping into the room. "You will forgive me for coming?"
"Where could you go? Come, come, tell me everything. Why--what did those devils of police want with you? Shut the window and draw the curtain--there, now we are safe. I was just writing to Cesar d"Ombre. Do you know--here is a secret--he means to get away to England, and from there to the Princes. He is right; there is not much to be done here.
You shall go with him!"
"Shall I?" said Angelot, vaguely. "Well, Uncle Joseph--it does not much matter where I go."
Joseph de la Mariniere swore his biggest oath.